


Snake Bite

by PestilencePrincess



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, M/M, Mild Blood, Mind Control, Mind Rape, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Mutual Non-Con, Rape, Sex Pollen, Suicide, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:47:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PestilencePrincess/pseuds/PestilencePrincess
Summary: When they find him, cold corpse lying on an even colder grave, no one is as surprised as they think they should be. Harry Potter looks more peaceful in death than he had in the last three years of his life.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 28
Kudos: 187





	Snake Bite

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I claim no rights to Harry Potter, the characters or places borrowed, and I claim no profit from the making of this fanfiction.
> 
> Warnings: Rape, Suicide, Underage Sexual Content, Mild Blood, Mild Language.
> 
> A/N: While the memory takes place in fifth year during the battle in the department of mysteries, this series and the suicide scene takes place after the end of deathly hallows.

When they find him, cold corpse lying on an even colder grave, no one is as surprised as they think they should be. His eyes are shut, mouth slack, skin ghost white, and his hair creates a black halo around his head. One arm is pillowed beneath his head, the other rests on his chest with a black gloved hand over the stem of a purple hyacinth flower, a white envelope, and a small glowing blue vial. Harry Potter looks more peaceful in death than he had in the last three years of his life.

"Shit." Ginny is the first to speak, the word shaky and cracked like a non old china doll.

"Shit." Kingsley echos, sounding just as devestated.

Hermione is the first to shake out of the numbing grief, curiosity getting the better of her, even in the face of such a personal tragedy. She steps forward and gently tugs the letter and vial out of Harry's cold slack grip, drawing a strangled sound out of Ron, and a loud sob out Molly, who collapses like a marionette with cut strings. The letter has no name written on it, just plain creamy parchment stained rusty red, sealed with a small lily stamped into hard golden wax. With trembling fingers, Hermione opens the envelope and pulls out the letter, which showers dozens of small dried purple hyacinth flowers over her feet and the corpse of her best friend.

 _Dear friends_ , the letter starts, and Hermione sobs, dropping the letter before she can finish reading, afraid to read the goodbye her dearest friend left in his stead. Luna picks up the letter gingerly, placing a hand upon her shoulder in comfort, then she reads out loud.

" _Dear friends_ ," she reads, " _I would ask you not to mourn, but I know how foolish such a request is. It seems silly to mourn, the truth is I died a long time ago, but I suppose there is no way to prevent your sorrow. Life has a funny way of turning everyone into a victim of tragedy, hasn't it? I leave you this memory, not with the intent to vilify, nor to cause pain, but to give insight into why I felt I had to end my life so soon_."

Luna glances up hesitantly. " _It may be selfish to ask, but I don't wish anyone to see this memory aside from Hermione, Luna, Ron, and Ginny. My four closest friends. After you watch this, it may seem silly for me to find comfort here, but trust that there was no where else I wanted to be in my final moments. It felt poetic, to die alongside the man who started it all. Love Harry_."

Hermione sobs louder and rubs her puffy eyes. Ron lets her curl her face into his chest, and only the shaking of his arms and stuttering beat of his heart gives away that he's in as much pain as she is. "He's got a penensive in the library for studying." Ron's voice is as hollowed out as a pumpkin on Halloween, as if Harry's death scooped out all his insides.

No one moves for a moment, then Ginny snags the memory vial from Hermione's hand and marches back up to the house. After a split second hesitation, Hermione, Ron, and Luna follow behind her, leaving Harry's body undisturbed where it lies on Voldemort's grave as if only sleeping, the others standing in a silent circle around him.

"Can I come too?" Kingsley asks quiet, devestated. "Please? He was like a son to me these last few months."

Luna shakes her head, "It's Harry's last request."

Kingsley nods and turns back to Harry's corpse. Everyone seems devestated. Hermione feels a twinge of guilt. "You can see it after us. I promise." 

No one follows after them as they walk away.

Luna is the one who pours his memory in the penensive, and as one the four of them plunge themselves into the memory.

\--

They stand in a hallway, watching as Harry and Voldemort duel, and Hermione recognizes the department of mysteries with a jolt. The two enemies are alone, but she can hear the others distantly, close enough that she knows they aren't too far behind. This, she realizes, is the moment they lost track of Harry, the moment in which he disappeared for half an hour and returned to them shaking, bruised, and traumatized, just in time for the ministry to arrive and see Voldemort. The moment Harry stopped letting anyone touch him. The moment he started wearing the gloves. They had all thought he'd withdrawn from them because of Sirius dying, but whatever happened here, she realizes, was what really caused him to become so morose and touch repulsed. She has a bad feeling about this.

Voldemort sends a crucio at Harry, who dives to the side into an open room, crashing into a table, sending a pot of odd yellow flowers to the floor. It's a plant nursery of some sort, or a botony lab. None of the flowers or plants are ones Hermione has seen. Silver ferns and roses with butterfly petals and willows dripping with gemstones. Voldemort is in the room before she can really take any time to study them, and the duel continues with no regard for the plants or research being conducted in the room.

Voldemort casts an unfamiliar spell, a silent jerky movement of his wand that sends a bolt of black jagged light at Harry, and Harry dives sideways. It grazes his wrist, and Harry drops his wand with a hiss as the spell cuts a deep wound into the side of his wrist. Harry, clever brave Harry, doesn't let the loss of his wand distract him. He picks up a pot of flowers, something that looks a lot like black henbane, but with purple flowers and red tipped leaves, and tosses it at Voldemort as a distraction while he dives for his wand, rolling to point his wand at the dark lord and casting the disarming spell.

It hits, but only because Voldemort is standing stiff and deadly still, surrounded by a hazy purple cloud of pollen that's steadily beginning to spread throughout the room like fog. He doesn't even move when his wand flies out of his hand and clatters into a corner somewhere. The door, Hermione realises, has closed, probably a safety measure to keep the contamination from spreading.

Harry keeps his wand pointed at Voldemort, wary and shaking. "Umm, Voldemort?"

The dark lord doesn't move, doesn't turn his way. His shoulders are moving as if he's breathing heavily. "Potter," His voice is unrecognizable, not the high hissing taunting Hermione has heard before, but darker, deeper, strained. "Harry, you need to leave. Now!"

Harry is alert, fear flashing across his face, but her friend isn't one to leave another in danger. She sees it cross his face, the moment he decides to help instead of running. "Voldemort?"

He steps closer, a single step, and Voldemort snaps his head up. Voldemort looks dazed, flushed, mouth lax, and eyes wild and unfocused. His pupils are dilated, almost to an inhuman degree, the red is a barely visible jagged line around the void black of his pupils. It makes him look feral, Hermione thinks with no small amount of fear. He grabs Harry by the wrist in a swift movement that causes him to stumble as Voldemort jerks him forward and throws him at the door.

"Get out of here!" He growls, low and predetory, and his voice has taken on an odd quality. A plea, not an order, Hermione realizes, and Harry seems to realize that too.

"Are you okay?" Harry asks, trembling.

Voldemort lets out a choked sound. "Harry, just walk very slowly backwards to the door and leave. Don't run. Don't turn around. Just walk away very _very_ slowly."

"Get out of there Harry." Ron mutters, jerking Hermione out of her horrified trance.

Ginny and Luna look like they might get sick, pale and horrified and trembling. Ron looks like he's turned to stone, knowing nothing he does will change what's happening, but unwilling to let his friend suffer whatever is affecting Voldemort. Whatever aggressive horrible thing is to come. Hermione feel like she's missed something vital, something that would tell her why Voldemort is affected but Harry isn't.

Harry walks backwards slowly, and Voldemort's eyes track his every movement. Porcelain crunches below his feet. The purple pollen stirs up into the air, a foggy cloud of violet filling the room in a haze that seems to blur everything around the edges. It's hard to see anything through the sweet smelling floral fog. His back hits the door with a resounding thud that echos in the room. He feels around for the doorknob, rattling it with all his might, before he seems to remember he's a wizard and casts alohemora. It doesn't work.

"Gods, he's gonna die." Ginny hisses, hysterical, and Hermione has to force herself to remember that for this memory to exist, for Harry to be dead on Voldemort's grave, he can't die here. Harry doesn't die here, but then again he is hurt, somehow, and this will change him.

Harry turns away and trues the spell and rattling the doorknob several more times. "Voldemort, please tell me you know of another unlocking spell?" Harry's voice is high, hysterical, and urgent.

He turns and Voldemort is on his knees, trembling, breathing deep heaving breaths like he's on the verge of a panic attack, and his gaze is rivited on his shaking fingers. Hermione knows he doesn't die either, but finds herself oddly concerned about the Dark Lord, then guilty for her concerns. She's been suspecting he'd hurt Harry, but maybe something else happens, maybe the poison starts to affect Harry too, maybe it's not Voldemort who hurts Harry here.

"Voldemort?" Harry asks tentatively. He doesn't respond. He doesn't even twitch. "Fuck."

Harry turns back to the door rattling the door again, muttering curses and pleas under his breath. Hermione, so invested by Harry, is nearly as startled as Harry is when Voldemort suddenly slams him against the door, jumping as Harry lets out a shocked frightened noise.

"Voldemort?" Harry struggles, using his arms to try to push against the door, to find a way to push himself away.

Voldemort hums absently, breathing deeply as if scenting Harry. Hermione is suddenly cold, as if someone had dumped cold water over her head. She turns to the others to see identical horrified looks as everyone realizes the same thing. 

"Tell me this isn't going where I think it is." Her voice is high, shrill. Ginny gives her a dark, horrified, trembling look. She turns back to the scene in horror.

"Please," Harry's trembling like an autumn leaf in the wind, his throat bobs as he gulps, "Fight this, please?"

Voldemort's hand trails down Harry's face and neck in a possessive mockery of a caress. He curls it in Harry's hair, yanking his head back. Harry hisses in pain, wincing. His other hand trails down to Harry's belt and Harry starts to struggle harder. Hermione watches in morbid horrified fascination, unable to look away, not wanting to see. The sound of his belt coming undone and being tossed to the floor is startlingly loud.

"No." Harry gasps, tears in his eyes, "Please no. No, no, no, no please!"

Hermione watches Voldemort pull at his trousers as Harry struggles and pleads and begs, and she feels sick. "No, no, no." It takes a second to realize that she's the one speaking.

Ron spins her around. "Don't watch." He chokes out. "Don't look."

She knows it would be easier, but Hermione turns her face back to the horrible scene, clutching Ron tightly to her. Harry gave them this memory, he must have known how difficult it would be to watch, but he entrusted this memory to them as his final request. She can't turn away.

Harry stiffens as Voldemort rocks against him, panting growls slipping from his lips, and Hermione watches in horror even as Harry renews his struggles, hoping against hope that this is the worst of it, that it doesn't go farther than this. Horrible as this is, she can watch this, but if Voldemort goes farther, if he actually does it, Hermione might just die of sadness. Harry's pressed against the door, forehead resting against the wood, sobbing, pleading, begging as Voldemort grips his hips tightly and grinds against him. Ginny gives a keening wail and Hermione feels her leave more than she sees. She'd leave too, but this was his final request. She can handle it.

Voldemort pulls back, and a small burst of hope flowers in her chest, only to be crushed as he pushes Harry's trousers down. Harry lets out a pitiful sound. Hermione can't see enough to know when Voldemort takes himself out, but she hears the zipper and rustle of fabric. This, she knows, will hurt Harry. 

"Wait, wait, _wait_?!" Harry gasps and then he does the strangest thing.

He stretches up on his tiptoes, arching his back, and guiding his hands between his legs. When seconds later he winces with a choked off cry, she can't help but feel confused. That hadn't made it harder, that strange movement, but Ron and Luna both let out halted relived sort of noises, and Hermione turns to them in confusion.

"You stupid genius." Ron chokes, wiping his eyes.

"What?" Hermione asks, "What did he do?"

Luna gives her an odd look that morphs into one of realization. "Oh, I forgot, you wouldn't know." She gasps. "I forgot they changed the books in 1990, before you started school. Harry wasn't born Harry. He was born Harriett."

At her confused look, Ron stresses, "He used to be the _Girl_ -who-lived." 

At once it clicks. He's got different genitalia than Hermione had been expecting. No one had told her, Harry hadn't told her. Everyone just assumed she'd known. Anal, with no prep, would have been nightmarishly painful, but a vagina is self lubricating. Certainly he'll be hurt, humiliated, debased, and degraded, but like this Harry can spare himself some of the pain. She can't help the tiny spot of relief the blooms in her abdomen.

Harry makes a particularly sharp whimpering noise, and Hermione turns to see Voldemort has pulled his head back again with one hand, his other arm across Harry's chest, arching Harry's back in a way that looks uncomfortable. There are two thin smears of pinkish red on Harry's jaw, and his eyes are frightened, narrowed in pain, the green of them practically glows in the hazy purple of the room. His legs tremor as he struggles to stand on his tip toes, trousers pooled around this ankles, and his arms are trapped against the door, fingers scratching against the dark wood.

"Is that blood?" She asks, horrified, mouth agape, eyes wide.

Ron nods grimly while Luna turns away with a hand on her mouth as if to stop herself from throwing up. Hermione also feels sick, and she buries her face in Ron's chest so she can't see. But she can still hear. She can hear the soft high pitiful whimpering from Harry, those predatorial growling moans Voldemort makes, and that slick slapping noise. She does not need to be looking to see the scene playing out behind her eyelids, an eternity of sounds to feed her subconscious. Each noise is quiet, soft, and somehow deafening in the small room of flowers. She doesn't turn back, wincing at each noise as Ron strokes her hair to give her the comfort he is unable to offer Harry. Luna rubs her back and Hermione doesn't look up to see if either one is watching the horrible scene play out.

The doorknob rattles. "Harry?"

Hermione whips her head up to stare at the door at the sound of Tonks' voice. Surely this is when Harry was rescued. Surely Tonks hears this and saves him. Maybe Harry asked her to keep it a secret, the horrors he faced in the room. But Harry doesn't say anything. He makes no noise. With horror, Hermione realizes that Harry doesn't want anyone to see him here, not for his own sake but for the sake of Voldemort. He does not want them to witness this, to jump to conclusions. Because Tonks would have jumped to the same conclusion she would have had she found Harry being pressed against the door by Voldemort in this manner, and her stupid selfless friend doesn't want everyone to see Voldemort as a rapist, because this isn't something he'd do if he were in control.

"He's not gonna call out, is he?" Ron chokes out. Luna shakes her head with a grimace.

The doorknob rattles again and Tonks calls, "Anyone in here?"

Hermione, unable to watch as her friend is violated in such a way with help literally just outside hesitantly walks to the center of the room, where the odd purple flower lays in a mess of pottery and dirt. It's one of the better things about watching memories in a penensive. She's an outsider, a bystander. Hermione can't interfere, everything has already happened, but she has a different spacial awareness than Harry. A new perspective. If Harry ever learned the name of this flower, it will be here, in this memory, as if he'd known all along.

 _Hyoscyamus anguis_. Serpent Henbane. Hermione's eyes widen. She has heard of this flower. It was in the fourth chapter of _Magical Plants and their Usage in Potions, Vl. 4,_ by _Callidora Bell-Tracy_. A poisonous flower recently discovered to have usage in mind-healing potions. It had a warning written in the end about keeping it away from snakes due to a highly toxic, aggression inducing, aphrodisiac in the pollen that only affected snakes.

Voldemort, it seemed, was more serpentine than she'd thought.

Suddenly, Harry cries out, and Hermione turns to see Voldemort's stiff and still with his face burried in the crook of Harry's neck. Harry is crying softly, tears dripping down his cheeks. Voldemort moves his head back, and his mouth and Harry's throat are smeared with crimson.

He bit him.

"He bit him?" Luna gasps in horror, echoing her own horrified thought.

Ron looks sick. Hermione can't help but wonder if that scarred. She remembers seeing blood smeared on Harry's neck and shoulder as they left the ministry, but she doesn't remember seeing a wound. However, the next day he started wearing turtlenecks no matter how hot it was.

Suddenly, a shrill tone rings through the room, like a songbird. Wind blows through, sucking away the purple fog of pollen, and oddly shimmery water begins to rain down from the ceiling. Hermione imagines it's some form of safety measure, just as the doors locking had been.

A moment later, Voldemort stumbles violently back away from Harry, shaking his head, eyes wide, pupils shrinking, chest heaving. Harry turns, slinking down to the floor with his hand against his throat and his back to the door. His pants are pooled around his ankles still, so as he slips down she can see more of his bloodied thighs and bruised hips than she has any right to see. Voldemort looks as traumatized as Harry, hands shaking. Harry is trembling by the door, knees to his chest, staring at Voldemort with wide horrified eyes. The dark lord sinks to the floor by the desk in a mirrored position of Harry's, staring at his bloodied fingers as if they were not his own.

\--

The memory ends there, fading to black, and the three of them stumble out of the memory. Hermione immediately runs to a nearby trashcan to hurl, and Ron finally lets out the tears he had been holding back.

"You guys have to see this?" Ginny says quietly from the door, though her voice is urgent and serious.

Hermione stands on shaking legs and follows Ginny through the door with Ron and Luna. Ginny stops before Harry's desk where she points. In a short blue pot is a small purple flower with red tipped leaves, one which makes Hermione blanch as she recalls exactly what that poisonous little flower had caused.

"Given what that flower caused," Ginny says carefully, "Why would Harry have it on his desk?"

She's right. Harry wouldn't keep such a thing. It's either a clue, or a threat.

The four stare at the ominous flower for a long time, then Luna swipes it from the desk and throws it at the wall. Through the purple haze of pollen, a bit of silver glints from the soil. Ron hesitantly walks to the wreckage, then stands up and turns to them a moment later.

In his hand is a small key with a note attached. It only has three short sentences written on it.

_Destroy the memory. Destroy the flower. Find me._

He's alive, Hermione realizes. Harry is alive. Hermione looks outside to the grave where Harry Potter is supposed to be lying dead, and wonders who lies in his place, wearing his face. She wonders, where in the world is Harry Potter? 


End file.
